Healthy Eating theLower Sodium Way

Sodium is hidden in sweet-tasting foods such as muffins, breads, and instant oatmeal.

Lesson Plan

This mini-lesson will take 30-45 minutes to complete. Participants will learn the importance of a lower sodium diet for their health and will discover how to make lower sodium choices. Participants start with a short quiz (for their eyes only).

Test Your Sodium Savvy Quiz

Tell them not to worry if they do not know the answers. You will cover all of the information during the lesson (answers to the quiz are discussed beginning with slide #5).

Healthy Eating the Lower Sodium Way PowerPoint Presentation

An introductory discussion on the health risks of too much sodium and the current dietary recommendations is critical for participants to understand this topic and get the most from the learning activities.

To help you lead this discussion, use the Healthy Eating the Lower Sodium Way PowerPoint presentation and speaker notes.

You may need to present this information in a format suitable for the group situation: you might copy the key information onto flip chart paper or make overhead projector transparencies. You may also choose to distribute handouts of the presentation slides.

Slide outline:

Slide 1: Canada food guide review

Slide 2: overview discussion & quiz review

Slide 5: True or false

Slide 6: where is sodium?

Slide 7: true or false

Slide 8: blood pressure

Slide 9: other health risks

Slide 10: true or false

Slide 11: Canadian consumption

Slide 13: labels

Slide 14: sodium101.ca

Slide 15: true or false

Slide 16: fresh foods

Slide 17 - 30: case scenarios

Healthy Eating with Less Sodium Case Scenarios

Ask participants to work in pairs or small groups. Distribute one Healthy Eating: the Lower Sodium Way Case Scenario to each group. Ask groups to do their best to answer the question they are given.
Explain that they may need to guess at the answer. There may be some surprises when they find out the right answers.

Allow about 5 minutes for the groups to work on the case scenarios.

Start with Case Scenario #1, and have each group report on their work by reading out
the Case Scenario and their answer to the whole group. To help people follow along,
use the PowerPoint slides and speaker notes to review the answers for each question.

Answers and discussion points for the Leader can be found in the complete Lesson 2 download.

Case Scenario Outline:

Scenario 1:You would like to choose lower sodium meals when you go out to eat. Put the restaurant meals below in order by the amount of sodium they contain from lowest in sodium to highest in sodium.

Scenario 2:You are trying to reduce the amount of salt that you add at the table and in cooking.
Which is the best option?

Scenario 3:You would like an afternoon snack. Which of the following foods is considered high in sodium (more than 400 mg sodium per serving)?

Scenario 4:You would like to make a lower sodium supper. Which of the meals are lower sodium choices (less than 400 milligrams of sodium per meal)?

Scenario 5:You would like to make a lower sodium supper. Which of the meals
are lower sodium choices (less than 400 milligrams sodium per meal)?

Scenario 6:You would like to make a low sodium lunch. Which sandwich fillings are lower sodium choices (less than 400 milligrams sodium per serving)?

Wrap-Up

Encourage participants to try to make lower sodium choices at their next meal.